The best-kept secret of top-performing teams isn’t AI

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The best-kept secret of top-performing teams isn’t AI

Access to skills matters more than headcount. Is your talent strategy ready?

Research shows that employers are making blended teams the norm — mixing full-time employees with independent experts to keep pace with the AI-accelerated skill revolution. Indicators include:

• Data from the World Economic Forum suggests that, if the world’s workforce were 100 people, 59 would need training by 2030 (29 upskilled in their role, 19 reskilled or redeployed, and 11 likely to miss training).
• The Upwork Research Institute found 38% of C-suite leaders say the skills gap will materially impede performance this year — more than regulatory changes, leadership misalignment, or shifting consumer demand.
• Research from Gartner ranked strategic workforce planning among the top priorities for chief human resources officers in 2025.

Organizations that pair the institutional knowledge of full-time employees (FTEs) with the specialized skills of the burgeoning freelance workforce are delivering high-impact results and faster innovation. Upwork, an online marketplace for hiring skilled freelancers, highlights three findings that leaders should act on now.

#1: Skills-forward hiring: higher-quality work, faster innovation

As skills gaps widen in the AI era, leaders close them with specialists — often freelancers — who outpace their FTE peers in their aptitude with AI and deliver results.

The data

• Leaders are seeing the positive impact of engaging freelance talent. In a recent survey from The Upwork Research Institute, 76% of executives — and 78% of CEOs — said their top freelancers contribute more value than degree-holding employees. And nearly half of CEOs are planning to increase freelance hiring over the next 12 months.
• Freelancers have an edge on AI. Other Upwork research showed that 54% of skilled freelancers report advanced-to-expert AI proficiency and 62% use AI at least several times per week, versus 53% of their FTE peers.

What this means‍

Organizations today need a wide range of skills to solve a complex, diverse set of problems. Those who employ blended teams — FTEs for context and independent specialists for targeted skills like AI — see higher-quality, faster results.

Small and midsize businesses see this too: Mortgage Capital Trading (MCT) runs a hybrid work model with 15-20 external developers alongside its in-house team. Together, they’re building and scaling MCT’s subscription-based software platform while transitioning to an AI-first development environment.

“Our priority is making sure every developer fully embraces AI — not just dabbling with tools like Copilot, but moving toward true chat-based coding workflows,” said Phil Rasori, COO of MCT. “Freelancers bring deep AI skills that complement our internal developers’ domain expertise, helping us accelerate that shift. That combination has been critical for us to fully embrace AI.”

#2: Few get this right: blended teams are your edge

Redefine your workforce to include all contributors — FTEs and independent talent — to grow faster and attract the AI-literate talent you need. The pipeline is already moving.

The data

• High-growth firms go beyond tradition. In an analysis of U.S. public companies by The Upwork Research Institute, organizations in the top quartile of year-over-year growth were more likely to diversify work models: 50% lean on managed services, 45% embed skilled freelancers across functions, and 41% run mature human and machine strategies.
• But few orchestrate well. In MIT Sloan Management Review’s workforce ecosystem orchestration index, just 12% qualified as “intentional orchestrators” that actively integrate internal and external talent to deliver work.
• The pipeline for the best talent is shifting. The Upwork Research Institute found that 53% of skilled Gen Z knowledge workers are freelancing today; 36% of skilled FTEs are considering a shift. At the same time, the adoption of generative AI is 61% among Gen-Z freelancers vs. 41% among Gen-Z FTEs.

What this means‍

Blended workforces are becoming the norm, not the exception, and organizations are doing this at scale. Companies such as Cisco and Novartis already operate with tens of thousands of contingent contributors working in-tandem with their employees. They are employing new processes to integrate contingent workers through unified governance, technology transformation, and a greater emphasis on culture.

Innovative organizations like these understand the edge provided by end-to-end talent orchestration and inclusion. They roll up their entire workforce into one culture and a single performance scoreboard, and provide clear direction for onboarding, access, offboarding, and other core activities.

#3: Freelance hiring: Speed-to-impact

When timelines are tight, fast access to talent nets quicker results. External specialists typically start in days, not weeks.

The data

• Employee hires are slow by design. U.S. businesses take a median of 35 days to fill a full-time role, according to a SmartRecruiters analysis of over 26.5 million applications.
• Hiring freelance talent is often much faster, in contrast. The median time to hire for contingent roles ranges from just nine to 14 days, depending on the role. In fact, many Upwork clients are able to hire skilled talent in as little as one or two days.

What this means‍

The market won’t wait for your next big idea — you have to move fast. And that starts with nimble hiring models. When it comes to product launches, security fixes, or regulatory compliance deadlines, turnaround time can be the difference between seizing or missing an opportunity.

Give it a try

If you want to experiment with blended teams, start small and learn as you go. While every business should explore options that best fit their needs, here are a few pilot programs to consider testing out:

• Run a “skills plug-in” project. Identify one active project with a skills gap (e.g., design, data science, or marketing). Staff one to two freelancers to fill that gap and keep the same manager, standups, and systems.
• Build a bench of on-call freelancers for rapid-fire projects. Choose three priority skills, pre-vet a few freelancers per skill, and agree on a quick availability timeline as needs arise. When a fire-drill project hits, pull from the bench to form your tiger team.
• Onboard external talent with the same prep and rigor as you would FTEs. Create an onboarding playbook for freelancers that includes information like NDA/IP forms, data access instructions, SSO and collaboration channels, team rituals (standups, demos, retros), and key reference documents. Build in timelines for initial projects and spell out what happens at the end of an engagement.

Start designing for outcomes

It’s time to stop debating headcount and start designing for outcomes. To reach their most ambitious goals, future-ready teams balance employees for continuity, freelancers for edge skills, and AI for acceleration. Make sure you’re prepared before your competitors beat you to it.

This story was produced by Upwork and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.